This paper presents development and performance assessment of an innovative and a highly potent graphene-electrolyte capacitive sensor (GECS) based on the supercapacitor model. Although graphene has been widely researched and adapted in supercapacitors as electrode material, this combination has not been applied in sensor technology. A low base capacitance, generally the impeding factor in capacitive sensors, is addressed by incorporating electric double layer capacitance in GECS, and a million-fold increase in base capacitance is achieved. The high base capacitance (∼22.0 μF) promises to solve many inherent issues pertaining to capacitive sensors. GECS is fabricated by using thermally reduced microwave exfoliated graphene oxide material to form interdigitated electrodes coated with solid-state electrolyte which forms the double layer capacitance. The capacitance response of GECS on subjecting to strain is examined and an enormous operating range (∼300 nF) is seen, which is the salient feature of this sensor. The GECS showed an impressive device sensitivity of 11.24 nF kPa-1 and good immunity towards noise i.e. lead capacitance and stray capacitance. Two regimes of operation are identified based on the procedure of device fabrication. The device can be applied to varied applications and one such biomedical application of breath pattern monitoring is demonstrated.

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We report a novel strain sensor based on reduced graphene oxide (rGO) with palladium (Pd) nano-composite. The sensor was fabricated on the SS304 stainless-steel substrate using a screen-printing method. Graphene oxide was synthesized using a modified Hummer’s method and reduced using a chemical route. Field emission-scanning electron microscope, x-ray diffraction and Raman spectroscopy were used to characterize the as-synthesized nano-composite. The as-fabricated strain sensor was tested for tensile strain using Micro-universal Test Machine and the change in resistance for different strains was recorded. The sensor response was observed to be stable and linear within the applied strain range of 0–3000 microstrains, and an average gauge factor of 42.69 was obtained in this range.

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